


So This Is Christmas

by Indarkstars



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: 5 Times, Christmas, Christmas Angst, Christmas Fluff, Crash Fest 2019, M/M, Roswellprompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indarkstars/pseuds/Indarkstars
Summary: A 5 Times Christmas Fic for Crash Fest





	So This Is Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LilasCosmicDixon](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=LilasCosmicDixon).



I

Michael was thirteen and already tired of drop-offs. They were a part of most fostering arrangements—locations where ‘parents’ could drop off kids for free or reduced prices. Sometimes they were pretty cool—like the one month of free Aikido practice—but most of the time they were poorly funded after school programs… or religious. This time the religious aspect was a perk to his fosters, not an incidental, and it showed. 

Every afternoon there was a prayer service and then a free-for-all on the basketball courts.

Michael’s nose itched when he went inside but he was almost always able to slip away past the smell of moldering peppermints and watered-down juice to some corner and not be bothered.  _ For once _ .  _ For once _ . He was trying not to get angrier. 

But that day he had been pulled aside, completely different and something he didn’t particularly like and was given a paper tree. 

“Make a list!” The teen assistant said and Michael had frowned down at the paper for a long moment. “For Santa.” She added, as though Michael didn’t know what this was for.

“I’m thirteen.”

“So?”

Michael, who had never really believed in Santa (except, once, when he was young and thought for a moment— _ like me _ ? But that was a fantasy and he had learned better and fast), waited and was rewarded.

“Just do it.” 

“Yeah, okay.”

This was not Michael’s first Christmas. This was not even his first  _ religious  _ Christmas. So, he stared at his paper tree and wrote:

> Jeans. SZ 13
> 
> Chord Book.
> 
> ~~ Book on telekinesis ~~

Later, Michael would see that same paper tree on a real pine tree among almost twenty paper stars, ornaments, and other trees. And he saw it the next day. And the next week. And the week after that. 

“The kids are just more fun to buy for.” Michael heard one of the mothers say once in the weeks leading up to Christmas. She had pawed over the Christmas Tree ‘angels’, looking for three to buy for. “Who wants to buy pants and underwear for Christmas?”

No one, that’s who.

He got a bible that year. It was better than the birthday that fell sometime around an exorcism and the sound of dry desert shifting over a dead body. 

I I

It was Christmas Eve and none of the decorations were up. Alex, twelve, wasn’t sure if he was surprised or disappointed and if he was either—who was it directed at?

Himself? The fact that he spent so many Christmas’ and winter holidays baking with his mom and now… 

Nothing.

Maybe his dad—who used to put up lights on the roof. Then at least a few lights in the windows. Now there was nothing. Not even a wreath. 

“It’s falling apart anyway.” He’d said, the one time Alex mentioned it—and then he stared at Alex hard, as though trying to figure out the best way to break him open and find out what was inside.

So nothing changed. There was no last-minute Christmas Tree. No flurry of decorating by all his brothers. Alex was almost thankful for the silence and the dull glow of the tv as it cycled through holiday episodes and movies. 

“Well isn’t this a sad sight?” Flint said, stomping his boots at the door before going to slump shoulder to shoulder against Alex and Rudolph re-run. “Dad working tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“And no one else came home, huh?” 

Alex shrugged, that seemed pretty evident. Flint was quiet, chewing over his senior year and everything no one wanted to talk about.

“Okay, then. Get up.”

“Why?”

“We’re going to Charlie Brown ourselves a Christmas.”

“No!” Alex was laughing a little, pulling his hands away, refusing to stand. Flint quieted, his wide childish grin faltering into something a little more reserved. Later, Alex would regret that moment, that he had snatched away something that maybe his older brother needed just as much as Alex did. 

“Okay, okay,” Flint said, not giving up. “We’ll do something else. We’ll go… fuck around the mall or the cabin or something else.” 

It wasn’t Christmas, exactly, but Alex hadn’t wanted it to be. 

I I I

The ears itched. And the kids were loud. And if Michael hadn’t needed a little bit of cash he would have been out of that mall after two days. If he had, he would have avoided the absolute joy of being puked on by a kid.

Sure he had been puked on by an adult, he had been around enough bars, after all, but this was a pint-sized brat and right to the face. Michael was still shuddering. Worse he was waiting to be spotted by Isobal or Max any day now…any moment…

And his break was almost over. Which meant that the likelihood he was going to get creeped up on—especially with Isobal who was already party planning her way through Martha Stewart’s last decade of Christmas magazines (minus the jail years)—was only going to grow exponentially. 

“Fuuuuuck.” He groaned, more to himself then to the cardboard gingerbread house he had been hiding in. 

“Elves don’t say things like that.” The voice, too prim by eons, originated by his knee and Michael groaned again.

“Kid, this is the elf house. Are you an elf?”

A pause and then, quietly, “No.”

Michael took a breath, looked up at the ceiling painted to look like gingerbread covered in icing, and held it. 

“Okay,” He had not yet looked down. “Do you need help finding Santa?”

“… the lines too long.”

Michael peeked out from behind the door. “It looks alright to me. Maybe five kids.”

“It’s too long.”

“Well,” Michael tried for a grin, pulled some cheer into his voice—that’s what they paid him for, right? “I’m going to have to go and help him, soon. I’m sure…”

“It won’t work. Can’t I tell you my list instead?”

“I—” Michael had not signed up for this. “I’m an elf.”

“So? You’re like… you’d have to tell Santa, wouldn’t you?”

“I…guess…” Michael finally looked down and next to the plastic gumdrop chair there was a kid. He couldn’t have been more than seven—skinny as a rail and in need of a haircut. “What’s your name?”

“Jonathan.” He sniffed a little, red-nosed and drippy eyed—Michael wondered why it hadn’t heard that before when he had been careful not to look. “You think…Tell Santa I want to go home. Or … maybe if he could just get a message to my mom?”

It was the worst request Michael had ever been given, and once in the past week, he had to listen to a kid list off every power ranger by first name in alphabetical order.

From somewhere outside a man’s voice rose up over the din of holiday shoppers, “Jonathan! Get your butt over here.  _ Jonathan _ .”

“I gotta go.” The kid said. “Tell him? Please?”

Michael quit that day. He blamed it on the imaginary ridicule of former classmates. 

I V

Somehow, “Christmas” on the base was the best Christmas in a decade. 

First, it didn’t start at Christmas. They made Dreidels during Hanukah, along with a meal of latkes (a very poor attempt) and sufganiyot (which tasted good even if they didn’t look quite right). There were “yule logs” which Alex was quite positive were  _ not  _ supposed to be meat and a ‘Christmas Dinner’ that was dressed festively with watermelons. They were all slightly wrong, but each person who offered up a holiday and a tradition were met with enthusiasm. Work still had to be done, didn’t it always? 

But who could deny the sincere childish delight of sharing a meal or a craft with a bunch of overgrown children who missed their families and non-Air Force friends?

Which is how the base got a tree made of reams of green netting and men spent over much time with tin-foil stars and ornaments. 

“It’s your turn, Manes.” Someone said and Alex scuffed.

“I don’t need the webcam.”

“Not that.” The voice said and shoved a red cap over his eyes. “It’s your turn to wear the suit.”

V

Michael never celebrated Christmas. By the time he and Max and Isobal had filtered into their adult selves—did they even really fit together that way? 

He would have said no last year. He would have laughed about it and made sure to find a bar that would distract him through Isobal’s Christmas dinner or another timely event. But things had changed.

Her house was still dressed as New Mexico meets Martha Stewart, but it was emptier now. Their relationships were not quite  _ right _ … but they were getting better. Michael was almost excited. Almost able to expect…something. He wasn’t even sure what but he was going to drag himself from bed to get ready. Soon. In ten minutes. Maybe twenty.

Alex wasn’t helping, leaning heavy and warm against his side.

The party wouldn’t really start without them. He could wait for Alex to wake up and until then there were dozens of Christmas lists to sort through—and wasn’t it great he didn’t have to go to a church or this?

“Damn,” He sighed, “There shouldn’t be so many kids’ lists left close to the holidays.”

“Choose a couple, then,” Alex said, lips on Michael’s shoulder, teeth grazing skin. 

Michael scuffed, “Why not all?”

“Not this year.”

“No,” He couldn’t help the almost smile. “Not this year.”

But maybe soon.


End file.
